Author Archive
Time to Face It: Detroit Red Wings Old and Crumbling
December 15th, 2013
The Red Wings are an injured bunch right now. But even before the players started dropping like flies, the Red Wings weren’t all that healthy.
This is an organization, once revered, that has fallen down a notch or two, overall.
The Pittsburgh Penguins came to town on Saturday night. It wasn’t too ...
Detroit Red Wings Need Jimmy Howard to Put Big-Boy Goalie Pants on
November 18th, 2013
The Red Wings are 0-2-4 in their last six games. In those six games, the team has allowed 18 goals in regulation time. That’s far too many for a squad that is having difficulty scoring goals itself.
Just like a losing streak or a hitting slump in baseball that causes the ...
Detroit Pistons Hiring of Maurice Cheeks Is Deja Vu All over Again
June 15th, 2013
Detroit Pistons President Joe Dumars sat before the haggard media and was speaking into the microphone. A team logo backdrop was behind him. It had been another disappointing season of NBA basketball at the Palace, and Dumars was determined to make sure it wouldn’t fester. He was describing yet another ...
2013 Detroit Red Wings Thriving as Playoff Underdogs
May 25th, 2013
So this is how the other half lives, when it comes to playoff hockey. This is what it’s like to be a low seed, prohibitive underdog. This is what it’s like to have a goalie as hot as a firecracker, turning into Mr. Zero against a high-powered offense. This is ...
Detroit Red Wings’ 13th Playoff vs. California Teams May Be Last for Long Time
May 11th, 2013
Curse those NHL higher-ups. What are they doing, putting three teams in California, anyway? Why couldn’t they have left well enough alone? Why wasn’t it OK to have a “Western trip” mean a train to Chicago and Detroit? Hockey in California? The fans walk to the arena in shorts and ...
Former MLB Umpire Dave Pallone All Too Familiar with Jason Collins’ Secret Life
April 30th, 2013
As a straight male, I don't even pretend to know what someone like Jason Collins must have been going through, living a secret life as a gay man while an active player in the NBA. This isn't like grief. It's not a few quiet moments at a funeral home, when ...
Detroit Red Wings: Giving Jimmy Howard a 6-Year Extension a Smart, Logical Move
April 13th, 2013
The prevailing opinion among hockey fans in Detroit is that the Red Wings' goalie doesn’t win games, he merely loses them. He won’t win you a playoff series, but he sure will foul one up for you. The goalie in the Winged Wheel is like the closer in the Old ...
NHL Realignment: Detroit Red Wings, NBC, League Clear Winners
March 16th, 2013
The news that the Red Wings are moving to the Eastern Conference should have been announced by one of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, not a league spokesman. The Five-Star General of choice should have gotten up, like in a military briefing, and announced that the Red Wings’ years-long occupation ...
Detroit Red Wings: Hockeytown Ain’t What It Used to Be as Team Turns Mediocre
February 16th, 2013
It was the summer of 1990, and Mike Ilitch made a phone call. Then he got into a car and made the executioner’s sojourn. It was the same type of visit that Bill Davidson had once made to Dick Vitale’s house, some 10-plus years earlier. Inside the Vitale residence, the ...
Jordin Tootoo: Detroit Red Wings Mini Pugilist Becoming Fan Favorite
February 9th, 2013
If Dennis Polonich wasn’t a hockey player, he’d be one of the henchmen in a gangster film noir. And he’d be the short guy with a toothpick in his mouth, wearing a Fedora, playing with a coin and standing outside a storefront. Polo, as they called him when he played ...